Question

I have the following query in SQL :

SELECT TOP 1 *
FROM sessions
ORDER BY start_time

How should I code it instead in LINQ-to-SQL

Answer 1

Use OrderBy for the ordering, and First or possibly FirstOrDefault for the equivalent of TOP 1:

var session = db.Sessions.OrderBy(x => x.StartTime).FirstOrDefault();
if (session != null)
{
    // Use the session
}
else
{
    // There weren't any sessions
}

You could use a query expression for the first part, but it seems pretty pointless – it would end up being more long-winded than using “dot notation”, so I’d stick to that.